If You Need Somewhere To Fall In Love
by seriousish
Summary: In the new history Zedd created, Dahlia was never a Mord'Sith and Cara grew up without her. But some things never change. CaraXDahlia
1. Chapter 1

"There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough." ~Nancy Spain

The Mord'Sith weren't like most of D'Hara's soldiers. They didn't demand tribute or deference. They took what they wanted. They expected fear and obedience, which they received in abundance wherever they went. Like The Sparrow Inn. They stormed in, violence in leather, scanning for resistance but knowing there wouldn't be any. The villagers huddled in tight groups, hoping they wouldn't be the ones to serve as the Mord'Sith's legendary entertainment and yet wondering what it would be like.

Dahlia didn't. She knew there was nothing to desire in a Mord'Sith. After all, she had almost been one. And although she'd escaped being trained, Dahlia had still learned a hard lesson. Everyone left.

Since then, she'd grown up staunch and true, an innkeeper's daughter, able to fend off drunks and bandits with equal roughness. She'd become tough, not beautiful—muscled from hauling kegs, her hair chopped short, her fingers callused, skin colored by the sun instead of paled by luxury. Maybe that was what drew Garren to her. When your life's work was breaking people, you appreciated a challenge.

Garren didn't flirt. She just marched up to Dahlia and kept marching, pressing her against the bar, thigh between her legs. "Do you want to feel good? Or bad?" she asked, enjoying the way Dahlia's muscles clenched with the urge to resist.

Dahlia held still except for her tongue. "I doubt you could manage either."

Garren slapped Dahlia across the face, snapping her head to the side with the violence of the blow. "How did that feel? Good or bad?"

"Like a gentle summer breeze," Dahlia replied through swelling lips.

Garren drew her Agiel. "How about this?"

"Leave her, sister." The voice was both threat and promise. Although the Mord'Sith who'd spoken weren't the tallest of the group, she seemed to tower over the others. Her leather seemed thicker, tighter, more layered. And despite the hard travel she must have endured not a hair was out of place on her braid. But most striking of all was her face. In fact, it struck Dahlia harder than Garren had, wounding her with nostalgia. For a moment, all she could think of was her childhood. "She's mine."

"Yes, Mistress Cara," Garren said, ducking out of the way.

Cara. A common enough name, but enough to make Dahlia see a resemblance between this Mord'Sith and her childhood friend. It was the eyes that convinced her how impossible it was that her Cara could ever have been made into a Mord'Sith. Her eyes were bright and alive. Mistress Cara's were like polished stones.

Cara crooked her finger, not an enticing gesture but more like a master ordering their dog about. Still, Dahlia followed. They went upstairs to the bedrooms. Cara gestured for Dahlia to select one and she did. Inside, Cara instructed her on how to undo her leathers. As she did so, Cara spoke a measure softer. "You may sleep where you wish. The bed is big enough for two, but if you wake me, I'm likely to kill you unless you can defend yourself."

"You… you're not going to…" Fear, oddly enough, turned to indignation. "What, I don't meet your _high standards_?"

Cara smirked at her. "It's been a long day. The Mother Confessor herself wouldn't meet my standards. I'd have to tie her up for later."

"I thought you women were always in the mood," Dahlia said.

"I'm sure they would say that." Cara sat down on the bed, occupying herself with removing the last few scraps of cloth from her body. Her skin was nastily marked from the leather biting into it, forming arcane patterns in her flesh. "But I might be a bit too preoccupied with the town I put to the torch this morning to live up to my reputation."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"Because I had orders to, you foolish girl. They were harboring the resistance."

"But you didn't enjoy it," Dahlia observed. That was what the kind of women who said Mord'Sith were always in the mood would have believed.

"I don't enjoy everything I'm ordered to do." Cara laid down, pulling the covers over her, disappointed with how thin they were. Dahlia could see her body through them as if the blanket were drawn onto her. "It's cold in here."

"There are holes in the roof," Dahlia explained. "A gar tried to get in last week."

"Then perhaps you should fix it, innkeep," Cara replied sharply, as if anyone listening were an idiot for not doing things her way without needing to be told.

It was a childish sharpness.

"You remind me of someone I used to know," Dahlia said tentatively.

"I'm sure I don't."

Then: "Why'd you save me?"

"I didn't save you. I just didn't want Garren's talents going to waste on someone who doesn't appreciate them."

Dahlia gave the bed a wide berth as she fell asleep, but she kept a seeking eye on Cara—as if the Cara who dreamed would be an entirely different person from the Cara who awoke.

* * *

Dahlia didn't see Cara leave in the morning. When she woke up, the Mord'Sith were gone—gathered up by Cara at the sun's first light and scattered to the roads. The next time Dahlia saw her was weeks later, when the event was a joke to the bar patrons and a waking thought to Dahlia. Something to be dismissed as ruthlessly as idle daydreams.

Cara came back into Dahlia's life with the same slow suddenness as a fantasy. A horse and cart approaching like any other was suddenly Cara, staring at Dahlia as if challenging her to do something about it. "Did you miss me?"

Dahlia gestured to encompass the Mord'Sith, the horse, the cart, and Cara's reappearance. "Did you?"

Cara leapt down from the cart, untied the horse, and tossed its reins to Dahlia. "Stable that. I'm going to fix your roof." Cara spoke quickly, not letting Dahlia get a word in edgewise. "It wouldn't do for word to spread that the Mord'Sith were willing to stay at substandard dwelling."

"That should just about cover your expenses."

"Expenses?"

"Food. Board. Whores."

"None of my girls were with whores."

"They treated them as such."

Cara took a deep breath and Dahlia was horrified to realize what she was doing, talking back to a Mord'Sith. But Cara exhaled calm.

"Stay with me. If you leave, I'll assume you're summoning men unfriendly to Lord Rahl." She left the rest unsaid.

So while Dahlia did her chores, never far from Cara's sight, the roof was fixed. Cara never slackened. Her hammer kept pounding away like rain. When she was done, sweat coursed out of her with each movement. She undid her leathers to let the cool air of the tavern's interior work on her. Her pale breasts shifted into Dahlia's view. The Mord'Sith was unconcerned. Dahlia brought her a flagon of ale.

"Will I have to clean your gutters for that?" Cara asked, not sounding out of breath.

Dahlia shook her head. "On the house."

Cara drank greedily. It could've been poison. But it wasn't.

Dahlia stood on the other side of the bar. "What could you have done that you would need to make up for it this badly?"

Cara set her drink down. "Children."

"I'm sorry," Dahlia said immediately.

Cara drank more.

"I know that horrible things are done to D'Haran soldiers who disobey orders."

"Mord'Sith do them," Cara replied.

Dahlia poured herself a drink, drank it. "Why'd you come here?" It couldn't be that Cara wanted Dahlia to talk her out of hating herself. Could it?

"You're not afraid of me," Cara answered. "You could never be afraid of me."

Cara's face colored. It would be no more than a slight reddening for anyone else, but Dahlia had been around her long enough to know that Cara kept as tight a rein on her face as the leather did on the rest of her body. She had said a thing she hadn't meant to say.

Cara left immediately, and Dahlia didn't call out to her until she was too far away to hear. For five months they saw nothing of each other. Dahlia let a young fisherman court her, but broke it off. Being in his arms made her feel guilty. Then one night Dahlia came home, bone-weary, and Cara was in her bedroom.

Dahlia was only surprised by her own acceptance of it. The frustration of Cara's absence suddenly overwhelmed Dahlia. She growled "There's none of your lustful sisters about for you to save me from, so what is it? Do you need someone to cuddle?"

Cara took the jibe like she would a hit in battle, ignoring it and moving on. "Lord Rahl is planning to expand his dominion into Westland. He will need additional Mord'Sith. He has ordered a recruitment drive."

Dahlia felt a sort of blank horror, like her mind couldn't come up with an emotion strong enough to serve as a reaction. "Children?" was all she said.

"Your village won't be spared. Lord Rahl has a theory that the sweetest girls, once broken, become the best Mord'Sith. I don't hold to it. If you could help me find the girls who… the orphans, the troublemakers, those who won't be missed."

Cara had been a sweet little girl once. It was a hard thought to ignore. "Spirits, Cara, do you know what you're asking me to do?"

"I know it's hard to see logic, knowing what they'll go through. But better that than growing up on the streets to end up in a brothel or a grave. They'll be cared for. They'll be content."

"Like you're content? Coming here, treating me like we're best friends—"

"You are my best friend!" Cara snapped. "I've never treated you as anything less than a friend and all I've gotten in return is hostility and suspicion! Can't you see that I just… want things the way they were."

Dahlia stared at her. For a moment, her voice had been so petulant, so… childish.

"Cara," Dahlia breathed. When she had said the name before, it had been tinged with suspicion, fear, awe. Now it held a kind of intimacy.

"Mistress Cara," the Mord'Sith corrected defensively, like she could hide behind her title.

"My Cara," Dahlia countered.

"Lord Rahl's Cara."

Swept by the fear that she would run again, Dahlia dove out to take Cara's hand. The leather glove was cold to the touch. "Tell me your name, your real name. Do it and I'll help you with the… recruitment."

"You would blackmail me with children's lives." Cara's eyes were far away. "You would've made a fine Mord'Sith."

"Cara, please."

Cara looked at Dahlia's hand on hers. She didn't take her eyes off it. "My name is Cara Mason. No one has called me that in a very long time."

And just like that, Dahlia could see it: the child Cara had been, the child deep inside the Mord'Sith. She hadn't grown up—she'd been pulled taut, covered in armor, bled dry. Sharpened, clawed at and chiseled away until nothing was left but bedrock. Hard and cold. But it was still Cara.

"Oh, spirits!" As if the child inside her had seized control, Dahlia lunged forward to wrap Cara in a hug hard enough to crumple armor. "What have they done to you?"

Cara was unresponsive to the embrace. It was as if Dahlia were holding an ancient oak and expecting to uproot it. "They made me strong. You can unhand me now."

Dahlia was crying too hard to hear. She wanted to hold Cara forever, to squeeze out the years past and all the bad in them until only her friend was left. She'd spent a childhood crying herself to sleep, waiting for this moment.

"Dahlia, _let go,_" Cara rumbled. It was an open threat, and even more shocking spoken in a voice with the echo of Dahlia's childhood friend behind it. Dahlia released Cara and Cara pushed her back, into a chair.

"Make a list. All the unloved children. All the children without enough parents. All the children who come to school bruised or crying. I'll take care of them."


	2. Chapter 2

Cara retreated again behind the shield of distance. Around her, Dahlia realized, Cara was as skittish as an owl in daylight. She wondered if it was shame, and if so, was Cara ashamed of who she'd been or what she'd become?

The plight of the taken girls faded so fast from Dahlia's mind that when she did think of them, she thought she herself might've made a good Mord'Sith. But Cara was alive. The thought suffered no competition. Her best friend was alive. Dahlia refused to let her memory fade again. Every daydream was of how Cara had changed and stayed the same. She had grown beautiful, not the beauty of a flower in a poet's verse, but the beauty of a jewel or a statue. Only Cara had carved herself into what she was. Dahlia knew her well enough to be sure that even if she had been forced into being a Mord'Sith, her final form was of her own choosing.

Cara's sister Grace was another story, a woman who seemed to have entirely fit into the vessel she'd been poured into. Her life, her family, her home, her breeding, they had all built her into a woman of decency and predictability. It was odd to look at her. Like seeing a Cara who had never been taken.

"Do you ever think of Cara?" Dahlia asked her once, when she stopped by the inn to enjoy a warm dinner and the new batch of wine that'd been delivered.

"Every day."

"It must be hard," Dahlia said, because she could be conniving at times. "Not knowing what really happened to her."

"It's enough to know that she's at peace now," Grace said.

Dahlia poured her another drink.

* * *

Just knowing Cara was alive had the strangest effect on Dahlia. She cried less. She smiled more. It was a hard time to quantify. But as a child, Dahlia had learned that happiness didn't last, and the world did its best to agree with her. There was word of a new Seeker, the one who would fulfill the prophecy. There had been talk before, but this was different. Instead of one story being embellished, a new adventure seemed to spring up each week. The Seeker and his beautiful Confessor and his wise old Wizard. What kind of person wouldn't be overjoyed to think that the days of Darken Rahl were at an end?

The same kind of person who could fall in love with a Mord'Sith, Dahlia supposed. Every time she heard Richard Cypher's name sung or cheered, she thought of Cara being cut down by the Seeker or the Confessor or the Wizard, heedless of her childhood, not caring that she had had parents and a sister and a best friend.

Cara returned, finally, a Mord'Sith putting an end to Dahlia's torment. There was simply a knock at the door and when Dahlia answered it, there she was. Cara was different, subtly, not in appearance but in the aura of power she projected. She didn't swagger in, she approached her customary seat like a penitent going to an altar.

"Darken Rahl is dead," Cara said once they were both seated.

Dahlia's hands flew to her face, not over the fate of Darken Rahl, but at the thought of what Cara would've gone through before she let assassins get to her Lord Rahl. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"I killed him," Cara answered.

Dahlia took a closer look at her. Cara was usually so impregnable that Dahlia had taken the crack in her façade to be simple weariness. But it was more than that, she realized. Even as a child, Cara had never gone anywhere without a purpose, and that headstrong single-mindedness had carried over into her days as a Mord'Sith. But now, for the first time Dahlia could remember, Cara looked lost.

"I returned the children. Their parents should be proud. None of them have broken yet" Cara continued. For her, the lives of innocent children came second to her master. "The Lord Rahl won't have need of Mord'Sith where he's going. And… it's not something you're strong enough to live with. You're not Mord'Sith."

"Thank you," Dahlia said at last. She bustled off to make a pot of tea. She was weak. She couldn't sit and stare and wonder what had become of the girl she knew. "Have you been eating? When something went wrong before… before we grew up, you always forgot to eat."

"Whatever you have for me will suffice."

Dahlia began adding her special herbs and spices to the broth, the ones she'd been saving for a special occasion. The busy work cleared her mind of Cara in that hateful leather. "So what will you do now?"

"I will do what the Mord'Sith will do."

"And what's that?"

"I don't know yet."

"You could stay here."

Cara looked up sharply from her reverie. In her eyes was surprise, bordering on hope. Those eyes narrowed. "I don't think you have enough beds."

"Not them. Just you." Dahlia set down the broth in front of Cara. She stepped back as Cara ate a spoonful, saying nothing. She wondered if she'd shocked her.

"If I wanted to disappear, there are many towns in D'Hara. What's so special about this one?"

"I'm here," Dahlia retorted, taking a step closer.

Cara glared into Dahlia's eyes as if offended by the display of emotion. "What's so special about _you_?"

Not that Cara would appreciate it, but it was a flash of rage that made Dahlia kiss her. She'd _show_ Cara what was special about her. Almost immediately, she thought that this might be Cara's first kiss, the first that meant anything.

She thought she might have ruined everything, but Cara didn't pull back, didn't try to. It was like she was trying to absorb the moment. When Dahlia stopped kissing her, she looked serene. So Dahlia kissed her again, this time trying to fill her to the brim with everything Cara had missed, being a Mord'Sith.

Cara flushed at the affection and pushed Dahlia back. She'd taken all she could take. "You shouldn't have done that," Cara said falteringly.

"I should've done that a long time ago," Dahlia said with the same newfound conviction that had touched Cara's lips. Dahlia didn't kiss Cara again, but no kiss could've been as intimate as the hand she laid on Cara's arm. Most people wouldn't have dared touch a Mord'Sith. Dahlia rested her hand on one. "Stay."

Cara didn't look at Dahlia, but at the hand on her arm. The fingers uncalloused, the knuckles unbroken. Hands that had never held a weapon or throttled the life out of someone. "My place is away from you. If you knew the things I've done—"

"Things you were forced to do."

"There are things I want to do to you. Things people aren't supposed to want for someone they love."

"I'm not a blushing virgin, Cara. I'll survive."

"You'll be broken." Cara pushed Dahlia's hand off her. "Right now I want… I _need_… to put you in your _place_. It's killing me to be this close to you. I have to force myself not to hurt you. I can't do it forever."

"You can change. I can fix you, _we_ can fix you!"

"There is nothing to fix," Cara said, dry and worn. "I will always be Mord'Sith."

Dahlia's hand sat alone on the table as she began to cry. It wasn't for herself.

As much as it tested her, as much as it agonized her, Cara put her hand on Dahlia's once more and squeezed it as gently as she could. "If I weren't, I would like to be as you are."

* * *

Both the rejoicing at Darken Rahl's death and the fear of the Keeper passed Dahlia by. Cara took up her thoughts. Every blonde hair, every scrap of leather was a reminder. But Dahlia welcomed the pain. It was like she'd taken a piece of Cara into her heart, a piece that was Mord'Sith. She practiced swordsmanship with an old soldier, toughening her hands with calluses, and wore leather next to her skin. Dahlia was rewarded with dreams of Cara, keeping her memory as fresh as a trickling wound.

After a month of absence, Cara reappeared. She'd changed so drastically it was a shock to recognize her. Cara's hair had been cut short and free, falling to the nape of her neck, immediately tempting Dahlia to run her fingers through it. And her dress… was it one of Grace's old outfits that she'd outgrown after the pregnancy? There was something about the sight of Cara in a dress—torn between compensating for her unintimidating clothing and trying to fit in. It'd be adorable if not for the sad story behind it.

Dahlia gave her a straight line, since sarcasm always seemed to temper Cara's mood. "You're back."

"I had nowhere else to go." Cara sat, as if trying to hide her summery dress from view. "I'm staying with my sister. It's… simpler to be with her than with you."

The unspoken wish that she could be with Dahlia made Dahlia's stomach fly. She knew Cara's meaning. She'd asked a great many travelers about the Mord'Sith, and outside the salacious stories one facet became clear. In order to accommodate the Lord Rahl, Mord'Sith were forced to use violence and love as the same thing. If Cara were to be with Dahlia, the same instincts that made her such an effective warrior might also destroy Dahlia.

Never had Dahlia wanted to take a risk more. But it was Cara's choice. Dahlia never wanted Cara to be forced into something she didn't want ever again.

Dahlia brought a bottle of wine with her to sit by Cara. Cara looked at both the bottle and Dahlia, but didn't take either.

"Cara, what happened?"

"Many things." Now Cara did take the bottle, only to press its cool weight against her forehead. It was an unexpectedly human gesture. "There was someone else, Dahlia. A Mord'Sith."

Dahlia didn't feel an ounce of jealousy. "You never made me a promise, Cara."

"With Darken Rahl dead, I thought we could be left alone, to go extinct. Like swords rusting away. But Triana was turned against me." She looked at Dahlia, one eye distorted through the sea-green liquid. "I killed her."

More things unspoken. This time, a warning. That if Cara loved someone, it was poison.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." Cara stamped the bottle down in front of Dahlia. Dahlia didn't blink. "Would you like to make a toast?"

Dahlia pulled the cork out between her thumb and forefinger, Cara's eyes on how her arm muscles rippled. She hoisted the bottle into the air—"Here's to that dress!"—and drank.

"Not a very auspicious toast," Cara commented, accepting the wine from Dahlia.

"You haven't seen how you look in it."

With a smile, Cara rolled her eyes. "With my sisters dead, I pledged my services to the Seeker."

"Why?"

"He's trying to stop the Keeper from destroying the world. I like the world. Parts of it, at any rate."

Dahlia blushed. "Wait, the Seeker is here?"

Cara took a long drink. "We parted ways."

"Why?"

Cara replied instantly. "The Mother Confessor is a bitch."

Dahlia got the feeling Cara didn't want to talk about it. "Well, your sister must be glad to have you back."

Cara snorted at the turn of phrase. "Ecstatic. She can't wait to find out what happened to our father."

"What did happen?" Dahlia asked, and weathered Cara's gaze. "I understand the Mord'Sith taking you, but why your father?"

"So I could kill him," Cara answered off-handedly. The drink had slowed her wit to the point where she made the remark as if Dahlia were one of the Mord'Sith she had spent her entire adult life with, someone who would take the statement as a fact of life. Her father wasn't Mord'Sith and wasn't a Rahl. Why should it matter how he died?

But when Cara finished her drink, she saw Dahlia was staring at her in horror. The way people were supposed to look at Mord'Sith.

Cara spoke quickly, almost babbling. "He was the reason the Mord'Sith took me. He sold me to them, he sold _us_ to them. They would've taken you too if you hadn't hid."

Dahlia backed away. She had seen Cara as her friend, locked up inside Mord'Sith training but still the little girl who had filled her summer days with play and laughter. Now she saw her as Mistress Cara, sister not to Grace but to the Agiel.

Cara got up like a volcano erupting. Dahlia could literally see the training taking over, in her narrowed eyes, her contemptuous sneer, and in the hurt that echoed in her voice. "That's right. Show respect for your betters."

And then, because she wasn't slipping anymore, wasn't _Cara_ anymore, she noticed the guards on the outside blocking the exits, almost scratching at the doors like hungry dogs. They burst in, surrounding Cara, making sure she was well and truly outnumbered before they fought. Heroes en masse. Cara drew her Agiels.

Dahlia got between her and the town guard. "Don't fight, Cara, don't hurt them! They have families, they have _kids!_"

Cara's gaze burned into the Dahlia as the guards waited, a dozen sharp points aimed and ready. Cara paid them no mind. Her eyes stayed on Dahlia. Hating her. But she dropped her Agiels.

"Master Rahl guide us," she chanted as she was dragged off. "Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered…"

The guards left her Agiels on the floor. Against her better judgment, Dahlia tried to pick one up. The pain lingered for hours.

* * *

In the stocks, the threat of what Cara might do if she ever got loose earned her a wide berth. But with Darken Rahl dead, fear wasn't the commodity it had once been. Soon, the rocks began to fly. Grace tried to shield Cara as best she could. She didn't know what Cara had done to their father.

Dahlia lingered in the back of the crowd, close enough to hear the stones thud against Cara. She wondered what could drive an innocent person to kill their own father, or if it was the province of monsters alone.

Cara never made a sound, no matter how many rocks they threw, but Grace did. She berated the crowds, but didn't know Cara well enough to offer any defense, so she just repeated "She's my sister! She's my sister!" over and over again. Dahlia imagined herself picking up one of those blood-scored rocks that had ricocheted off Cara and throwing it at her tormenters, but she didn't.

Beside her, a woman came to the crowd holding her skirt so it could carry a pile of rocks. Dahlia felt her hands become fists. She had to do something. No matter what, Cara was still her—

A man slapped the woman's arms so she let go of her skirt and the rocks tumbled to the ground. "Is this how your parents raised you, to throw stones at a defenseless prisoner? Is that how the Creator made you?"

He wasn't from Stowecroft, you could tell just by looking. He held himself higher. And no one Dahlia had ever met could carry a sword like that at his waist like it was no more than a tool.

"Who do you think you are?" someone asked anyway.

"I'm Richard Cypher."

Dahlia added her voice to the chorus. "The Seeker!"

* * *

It was ridiculous. Insane! To repay D'Hara for its crimes, they wanted to punish one of the victims! As if one of the children they accused the Mord'Sith of taking _weren't_ Cara.

Dahlia paced her inn like a tiger in its cage, trying to calm down. Yes, there was going to be a trial, but the Seeker was defending Cara. They would see she was… what she was, and then they would take her far away, to wherever the Stone of Tears was. Dahlia could get on with her life. She could meet someone else. She could walk through the streets without people whispering that she loved a monster. She could be normal. Cara couldn't, but she could.

After all, it would be one thing if Cara were a schoolteacher or a farmer, but she wasn't. She was Mord'Sith and that wasn't what Dahlia wanted in her life. She didn't want bloodied kisses or scratches raked down her back or locks of hair pulled from her head, like she'd seen on the bargirls other Mord'Sith had taken. She wanted Cara. She just wanted Cara.

She wanted Cara more than she wanted a fairy tale prince to sweep her off her feet, more than she wanted people not to whisper as she went by, more than she wanted to never hear of the Mord'Sith again.

No. She wanted all those things. But she needed Cara.

The courthouse wasn't far.

* * *

When she'd left, Richard had been talking about how Cara had been broken into the shape she now held. As if anyone who'd known the child she had been could believe she'd become _that_ by choice. But it was on her way back that she realized it was too late. There was thunder without sound and her ears rang anyway. Someone had been confessed.


	3. Chapter 3

Dahlia ran the rest of the way, praying to the Creator, the Spirits, anyone, that the stories were wrong. When she got there, she saw they were true. Nathair, the teacher Cara had unmasked as a Mord'Sith, was dying in agony.

Dahlia was fighting her way through the crowd, but she stopped when Nathair spoke of Cara's father, and how a little girl had been deceived. She couldn't bear to face Cara. Then Kahlan put her hand on Cara's throat.

"_Wait!_" Dahlia screamed, loud enough to take even the Seeker aback. Kahlan took her hand back from Cara, leaving it hanging between them like an arrow in flight. She watched intently as Dahlia approached her. "Mother Confessor, if you please… I'd like to speak on Cara's behalf."

"Get out of here, Dahlia," Cara hissed at her. She looked… broken.

Nantook, one of the elder, spoke. "Dahlia, the trial has been decided, Cara is receiving her just rewards."

Dahlia shook her head. "No. She isn't. You don't know her well enough to judge her, none of you do!"

"And how well do you know her?" Kahlan asked. There wasn't the authority in her voice that Dahlia would expect of a Confessor. In fact, she sounded even more shaken than Cara.

Cara was looking at Dahlia, shaking her head, trying not to drag Dahlia down with her.

Dahlia faced her as she spoke. "I love her."

Dahlia felt more than heard the crowd murmur, like her neighbors had taken a collective step back from her. She was tainted now. Damaged goods. Like Cara.

Dahlia forged on. "We played together as children, but were separated by the Mord'Sith. As a grown woman, Cara came to my inn by accident. But she returned to me again and again."

Kahlan whipped to Cara. "Is this true?" As a Confessor, she needn't ask, she just wanted to hear it in Cara's words.

Cara spoke in shattered sentences. "Among the Mord'Sith… everything is strength… power… it was pleasing to have someone… who wasn't a threat."

"She talked to me about how she regretted some of the things she'd done… how to follow Darken Rahl's orders while doing the least harm." Dahlia couldn't take the tears in Cara's eyes anymore. She went to her, taking her hand. It seemed to help. Cara wasn't wearing gloves.

"It's you," Cara said, and her voice was like nothing Dahlia had heard from her before. No strength and no weakness either. "You make me weak. You make me think of things long dead. Why are you always here? If you're not with me, you're in my head… I can't be rid of you." She went silent.

Dahlia let Cara keep her hand as she turned to Kahlan. "She was kind when she could show kindness and merciful when she could show mercy. Maybe that isn't enough for you, but it is for me." She looked back at Cara, wishing she could say these things without tangling them in Cara's pride, her vulnerability. But they had to be said regardless. "I'm sorry," Dahlia said helplessly.

"Don't apologize." Cara laughed like a sob. "Haven't I taught you anything?"

Dahlia hugged her, sobbing with both worry and the simple happiness of being with her. Over Cara's shoulder, she eyed Kahlan. "Please, Mother Confessor, please… don't take her away. I just got her back."

"Kahlan, by the Spirits…" Richard said, stepping forward.

Kahlan raised her hand, freezing him in his steps. Even the Seeker did not defy the Mother Confessor. "It is my finding that Cara was under the control of evil men and women when she committed her crimes, but acted innocently when she was not. Therefore, it would be no more just to execute Cara then it would be to hold a man to a deal he made with a dagger to his throat. By the accord of Aydindril, I am overruling the council's decision and making Cara a free woman. Whatever choices she makes from this moment on will be hers."

Dahlia kissed Cara, naturally. How wrong she'd been to dread that moment, because Cara didn't kiss like a Mord'Sith, with teeth and blood. She kissed like a little girl all grown up, like Dahlia had the first time she'd liked a boy, exploring his mouth and her own in equal measure.

Then all hell broke loose. Dahlia didn't see much of it through the fingers covering her eyes (her own), but she knew some of the townspeople charged the execution podium, intent on vigilante justice. Richard barely had time to free Cara before they were in combat.

The fray didn't take long. Volunteer swordsmen and grieving fathers couldn't hold out long against the Seeker's fighting force. Cara didn't kill anyone. Even the people who'd thrown rocks at her.

* * *

Afterward, Cara clammed up. It was like her emotions were muscles, ones she hadn't used in years. The day had exercised them, but overexerted, they'd given out on her. Dahlia didn't press. It was enough to have Cara's eye as she was reunited with her sister.

Then Dahlia went to pack. As unlikely as violence from her friends and neighbors seemed, she knew how frustrated they were with Cara's release. She didn't want to wait around while that anger simmered.

"Need a hand? Cara says I'm best at heavy lifting."

Dahlia turned to see Richard, his eyebrows piqued. She dropped what she was holding to curtsy, and the next thing she saw was Richard in front of her, stooping to pick up what had fallen.

"My lord, I couldn't possibly—"

"Sure you can. It'll give us something to do while we talk." Richard set her things down in a box, which he hoisted onto his shoulder. "Where are we taking these?"

"My cart in back." The box wasn't full. Dahlia asked that he hold it while she packed, but the business of choosing what to take and what to leave eluded her. She said "Talk about what?"

Richard's eyes drifted momentarily to the side, giving him the look of a man convincing himself once more that he was making the right choice. "Do you know how Darken Rahl died?"

Dahlia put her mother's salt shakers in the box. "Cara killed him."

"Did she tell you why?"

"No." Dahlia felt a brief need to explain that Cara barely told her anything, but that sounded worse.

There were some possessions that Dahlia couldn't bear to part with, especially if it meant they'd be vandalized by an angry mob. She went through her home collecting them as Richard told her about the Boxes of Orden and his time with Cara in the dark future ruled by the Master. "She captured me and forced me to accompany her… well, here. We found the place burnt to the ground, your bones scattered across the floor." Realizing how it sounded, Richard tried to smile reassuringly. "I believe that's what made her decide to turn against Darken Rahl."

"You must be mistaken. Cara wouldn't… she couldn't. Not for me. I'm no one."

"Cara also told me that if she didn't make it back, I was to deliver a message to you. I won't tell you what it is, since Cara would probably kill me for that. But think. There's one person Cara couldn't leave without letting her know how she felt. That's you."

"Why are you telling me this?" Dahlia asked. She'd unthinkingly picked up a doll Grace had given her after Cara was taken. Cara's doll.

Richard pressed his lips together, a man trying to explain what Cara meant to him. Dahlia recognized the expression from mirrors. "Cara thinks she's perfect. Kahlan thinks she's doomed. I think… Cara isn't all she could be. She wants to get back what was taken from her, but she thinks it'll make her weak. And you're worth being weak for."

"What can I do?"

"Be there for her. I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to do, but if you love her, wait for her. Even if you can't be together right now, it helps to know there's someone who loves you no matter what. Trust me. And tell her how you feel, because she won't know otherwise."

* * *

When they went outside, Cara was waiting. She'd bridled the horses. Richard put Dahlia's things in the cart and gave Cara a respectful nod as he moved off. Dahlia sat in the cart beside Cara, who had stripped her leathers of some ornamental weight. She looked better without every inch of her buckled and strapped into place.

"I'm going with them," Cara said. "Kahlan asked."

"Do you have to go?" Dahlia surprised herself by saying it.

"Have you seen them? If it weren't for me, they'd be interrogating random skeletons for the Keeper's plans."

"Alright," Dahlia said, nodding. "Go. But that's not what you want to tell me."

"No, it isn't." It was there, in the corner of her gleaming eye, in the smiling teeth under her pinched lips. "I don't know what to say," Cara admitted, and that confession, that _weakness_, spoke volumes. "But I want to say it to you."

"I'll listen," Dahlia said. "I'll listen as long as it takes."

Cara turned away. "I'll be gone a long time. I may not return. It'd make more sense for you to find someone else who makes you feel like I do."

"There is no one else who makes me feel what you do." Dahlia reached out to take Cara's gloved hand. She ran her fingers over the eyelets, the wire attaching it to Cara's leather sleeve. She memorized all the things she'd have to do to take it off, when Cara got back. "You found me once. Do it again."

"I will," Cara promised.

She hopped down from the cart and Dahlia clung to her outstretched hand as long as she could. Then she pulled Cara back to her.

"Can I say it?" she begged. "Can I kiss you?"

"Please."

Dahlia kissed her lips. "I'll miss you." Her cheeks. "I love you." She lost herself in Cara's hair as the Mord'Sith kissed her pulse, like she could take its taste with her on the road.

"I'll be back," Cara said, gently pushing Dahlia back into her seat. She took a step back, and another, and another, until she turned with one last look at Dahlia and went to join the four waiting silhouettes on the hill, ready to embark on their journey.

Dahlia steered the horses in the other direction. It hurt like it had when Cara was first taken from her, but if Cara could bear all that pain, so could she.


End file.
